Page 11 of Light Me Up

Keep it slow.He worked her clit with his thumb and she moved with him, keening softly with pleasure at the deep, heavy strokes. Bathing his stiff cock with every slick thrust, surrendering to expert fucking that turned her molten, helpless.

She was getting closer. Moving frantically. Demanding what she needed.So…fucking…hot.

He wanted to make it last even longer, but he lost the fight, swept along by the torrent. He just clung to her, fucking madly, until the world exploded.Tore him apart.

Just Caro. Her, and only her.

As soon as he drifted back from that magic space, tension gripped again. It never let go for long. A few deep breaths, andsnap, the trap sprang shut on him.

Caro stroked his face. His eyes were shut tightly. He leftthem that way.

She tugged him down on top of her, and he lowered himself, careful not to crush her with his hard-muscled bulk, settling on his side, gathering her close.

Pleasure from the fresh shock of contact blasted through him. Skin to skin. Her smooth leg resting over his thigh. Her warm lips, pressing his damp forehead. Her fingers trailing through his sweat-soaked hair.

Her shiver was as good an excuse as any to flinch away from the feeling of absolute nakedness. He reached for the bedspread. “It’s cold, babe. Get under the covers.”

It was better, cuddled up in bed. He tucked her head under his chin, enjoying the sensual warmth of her body. Lying like this, she couldn’t see his eyes. Or the shadow looming over him.

A shadow kept getting longer. Darker than the night that enfolded them both.

Chapter 4

Moonlight sliced through the arched stone windows, slanting dramatically across the antique tile floor of Frederick Konig’s luxurious library.

He sipped his wine and gazed out the window at the cypress trees bending in the night breeze. He gazed at his own reflection in the window glass, the gleam of his bald head, the light caught in the crystal wine glass while workmen shuffled behind him, carefully setting down the long wooden box in front of the ancient stone fireplace. The box was rather like a rough coffin, but too large and long forany human form.

A single wall sconce provided the only illumination, aside from the candle on his dinner table. Konig disliked artificial light.

His employees, Russo, Naimo, and Vilardi—evidently all too lazy to haul the box up themselves—waited at attention, along with the knuckle-dragging laborers they’d subcontracted to do the heavy lifting. Meaning more witnesses, more complications, more risks. Fucking idiots. Their sloppinessinfuriated him.

No point in scolding them now, though. Considering.

It irritated him that the delivery had arrived a full half-hour earlier than the appointed time, interrupting an excellent meal of grilled pork sausages, sautéed wild greens, and roasted potatoes. The food would be stone cold by the time hegot back to it.

Russo waved the laborers away. “Wait outside with the truck,” he directed brusquely in Italian. “We’llbe down soon.”

The two stolid, muscular men in canvas coveralls marched out of the room, leaving only himself and the three hired thugs who’d worked for him on and off for years. This job would be their crowning achievement. The last job they performed for him.

By necessity.

Konig waited for the heavy footsteps to fade away before turning to face them. He crossed his thick arms over his barrel chest and stared down at them, letting the silence grow until all three men looked visibly intimidated.

“I take it you have a strategy to dispose of those two?” Konigasked finally.

“Yes, of course,” Russo said. “As soon as we leave here tonight. Their truck is hacked. We’ll follow with my car and make sure that they’ll be going too fast for the switchbacks. They’ll break through the guardrail and fall twenty-five meters. We’ll verify their deaths before we go. You’ll hear about the accident on the localnews tomorrow.”

Konig nodded. “And the installation at the Palazzo? Everything is in place?”

“Yes, sir. There is a slight change in plans there, though, as you will see in the documents we brought. Signor Folti decided to move the unveiling ceremony to the Sala dell’Annunziata, on the second floor. He was going to use the downstairs hall with the Neptune frescoes, but when he found out that the Cardinal and the Archbishop are both attending, he decided that sacred images would be more appropriate.”

Konig let out a derisive snort. The frescoes of the Annunciation in the upstairs hall were dull and insipid compared to the magnificent Sala downstairs, where images of the ancient sea godNeptune ruled.

Still, the Sala dell’Annunziata had its own distinct advantages, now that he thought of it. On the second floor. Fewer exits. Everyone crowded more tightly together.Nowhere to run.

Maximum concentration of damage. It was all good.

How like his old business partner Gianfranco Folti to be so fucking prim. The man was embarrassed by the stunning artwork on the walls of his very own Renaissance palazzo. Anyone with half a brain would prefer the frescoes depicting the muscular, dripping Neptune with bare-breasted sea nymphs hanging all over him.

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